MORGAN COUNTY,
INDIANA
THE FIRST COUPLE MARRIED IN MORGAN COUNTY,
THE FIRST PHYSICIAN, AND
OTHER
INTERESTING
REMINISCENCES.
Of those who came early
to make homes
in Morgan county but few
remain to tell the stories of the "backwoods." Some few sketches have been written and
published in the county
papers by early settlers, such as Hiram T. Craig and others, which if preserved
would be valuable to the
historian if we should ever have one.
For several years past at the Old
Settlers' meeting aged men
and women have given their experiences in the wilderness, much of which would be interesting to
those who may live in the
closing years of the next century, if not now. The thought of trying to put on record the
savings and doings of the
"old folks" was urged by the late F. P. A. Phelps at one of these meetings at
Martinsville, five or six
years ago. But, as usual, "what is everybody's business is nobody's business" came strictly to
pass in this case, and so
nothing has been done that is known to the writer to rescue from eternal oblivion the
heroic struggles of the first
settlers of this county.
If it should chance that any reader
of this scrap should feel so
much interest in the subject as would induce him or her to lend a helping hand by writing
to the undersigned, giving
names, dates, characteristics, and incidents of the early life of the first settlers, they
would confer a great favor;
or, if preferred, send short sketches directly to the county papers.
The prime object should be to pay a
modest tribute of respect to
the memories of the pioneers who, with brave hearts and mighty arms, built the first
cabin homes in our county and
blazed the way to a higher
civilization.
Whether this
higher civilization has yet contributed much, if anything, to the solid worth of
human life, is an open
question. Is the sum total of human enjoyment greater now than then? Has our moral and
religious worth kept pace
with our moneyed and intellectual worth?
If not, why not?
"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a
prey,
Where wealth
accumulates and men decay."
In
1884 Charles Blanchard edited and published something of a history of Morgan, Monroe, and Brown
counties, together with some
biographical sketches. It is more valuable for its collection of county
records than anything else.
In the matter of biographies it is quite meager as regards the first settlers. It appears
that if an "old timer" did
not subscribe for the coming book ($10) his name was left out, while men not thirty five years
of age were given the usual
puff. As to our old Spartan mothers, they were conveniently forgotten.
Notwithstanding all this, Mr.
Blanchard is to be praised more
for what he did than blamed for what he did not do. Indeed, as he says in his preface, he
could and would have done
much better if people who knew had not been so reticent. They seemed to wish to be
subsidized for imparting the
needed information. Then again, they of the same family often disagreed as to dates
and the manner of spelling
names. The truth is, the old settler was a history maker more than a history writer.
Fortunately we are not left
entirely to guess as to how they did, for often they rehearsed to the newcomer their trials and
troubles in the first years
of settlement. This has been transmitted from sire to son, and, if not good history, it
is pretty sound tradition and
more worthy of belief than the story of Romulus and Remus and their stepmother wolf.
When a man and his wife resolved to
emigrate to central Indiana in
so early a day as 1820, they took into consideration what their surroundings would be. They
knew they were to be a long
way from the base of supplies until they could coax the earth to yield up her
fruits. Settlements advanced
somewhat like armies move, with pickets and pioneers some distance ahead of
the main body, drawing supplies
from the nearest settlements already formed.
Monroe and Owen counties were three or
four years in advance of our
county in the matter of organization. This fact proved a blessing to our first
settlers, as they were greatly
strengthened by the help of their near neighbors for the first year or two of settlement.
In those early times it was
often the case that the men of the family would come in the month of March, select
and clear a piece of ground
and build a cabin, cultivate some corn and vegetables, and then return and move the
family in the latter part of
the summer or fall. An instance of this kind was told the writer by the late Elijah
Koons, son of Devault Koons,
while at his house,
which stood on the very spot
of ground that he (Elijah) and his father cleared and planted in the spring of 1820. This was in
Sec. 16, T. 12, R. 1 E.,
known in the early days as
"the old sixteenth," the land
of corn and "punkins," squirrels and parquets.
Devault Koons with his large family moved
to this cabin in due time and
became one among the first settlers in the south part of Washington township. In like
manner came Cyrus Whetzel,
who is supposed to be the very first settler in the county. He and his father, Jacob
Whetzel, cut a trace
following an old Indian trail from the Whitewater river to the bluffs on White river in the
summer of 1818. They selected
ground for a home below
the present site of Waverly;
and the next March young Cyrus and a young man whose name is unfortunately lost,
returned and built a cabin,
cleared five or more acres of land in the river bottom and planted it in corn. The
following fall the elder
Whetzel and family came through the wilderness for many miles and safely reached the new
home, where he passed the
remainder of his life in hunting, fishing, and roaming the unbroken forest.
In the winter of 1820-'21, the blue
smoke of many a "stick and
clay" chimney shot up through the tree tops, while husband and wife sat looking at the
blazing logs below, thinking
of the "Old Kentucky home" where in childhood they had romped and played around the old
hearthstone and did not have
a care that could outlive a good night's sleep; thought, too, of the time
they became lovers and the
difficulties they experienced in keeping in that dreadful "current that never runs smooth";
and of the promise, the
"first kiss," the wedding day, and then they looked down at three little
responsibilities who had already arrived and were amusing themselves by
poking sticks into the fire,
and the reverie was broken.
Most of the early settlers were from
the Southern States, North
Carolina and Kentucky furnishing probably two- thirds of those who came in 1820-'22. Our
winters being much longer,
colder, and more changeable than those of the South, the newcomers must have
experienced great inconvenience
and privation. But they
came to stay
and make homes, and were not
deterred by wintry winds, nor by
the arduous task of clearing away the heavy forest that everywhere hung over their cabin homes.
Hope, the eternal mainspring
to action, sustained and cheered them on day by day.
Some great government events were
happening about the time of
our county's settlement. The independence of the South American states had been
acknowledged. The Missouri Compromise
was passed, Spain had ceded Florida to the United States, and the Monroe Doctrine
was asserted. Alabama and
Missouri had just been admitted into the Union, but above and beyond all was the
recent demonstration of the
successful navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and tributaries by steamers. This
gave an assured outlet for
all the surplus productions of corn, wheat, and pork that could be produced in
the Ohio Valley. Up to this
time a flatboat man had to walk back from New Orleans through the wilderness at the risk
of having his scalp taken by
an Indian and his body decay by the wayside. But now he could board a steamer at the
"Crescent City" on Monday and
land in the "Queen City" on Sunday, a distance of 1,800 miles. The old
"keelboat" and "setting poles"
were left to rot, on the shores of those mighty waters, while the waves of passing
steamers have continually lashed
their banks from that time
until now. When steamboat
navigation was an assured success the Middle West was the most desirable new country in
the United States. With its
rivers and rivulets, its bubbling springs, its dense forests of the greatest variety
of timber, its deep and
fertile soil, its stone quarries and mines of coal, it presented attractions to the earnest
home seekers seldom equaled
and never surpassed.
Indiana
was near the center of the Middle West, and our county was near the center of the
State; and so it is, a
concise history of the toils and
turmoils, privations, distress, and hardships of our old settlers, would
be the history in general of
central Indiana in its first settlements.
But let us go back to some of the
first things which were done,
and name those who were in authority in that day when Morgan county took her stand with
others of the "Indiana
family."
Jonathan Jennings was governor and
commissioned the first county
officers. As before stated, the preponderance of evidence points to Cyrus Whetzel as the
first settler. Phillip Hodges
was undoubtedly the first owner of real estate in the county. The land office must
have been at Brookville,
eighty five miles due east of Martinsville, to which place he had to make his way as best
he could, through an unbroken
wilderness. He bought two eighty- acre tracts of land, lying about two miles
east of Martinsville. Colonel
John Vawter was salesman and,
when the government patent
was given to Mr. Hodges, Colonel Vawter said: "Mr. Hodges, you are the
first owner of land in Morgan
county." Benjamin Cuthbert built and operated the first water mill in the
county
on the present site of the
Brooklyn mills.
Reuben Claypool is credited with
preaching the first sermon. This was
in Brown township at the
residence of a Mr. Martin. Mr. Claypool was probably a Methodist. Some say that Peter
Monical is entitled to this
honor. There is no doubt that Mr. Monical was among the very first preachers in the
county, as he was an early
settler. Reuben Claypool and
Martha Russell were the first couple married in the county. William W. Wick was
judge of the first court
(1822), and Jacob Cutler and John Gray were associated judges. Benjamin Cutler
was the first sheriff
(January 16, 1822) ; George H. Beeler was the first clerk of the circuit court; also
first recorder (May 22, 1822)
; James Shields was first county treasurer, and Charles Beeler was first surveyor.
The first justices of the peace were
Larkin Reynolds, Samuel Reed,
James Burris, and Hiram Matthews; one for each of the four townships, viz.,
Washington, Monroe, Ray, and
Harrison. The justices at that time composed the board to do county business. They held
their first meeting in June,
1822, at the home of Jacob Cutler, where they proceeded to divide the county into
the aforesaid townships.
We have stated in a former sketch
that the first suit at law
was Jacob Cutler vs. John W. Cox; but the first suit for divorce was Rachel Morrison vs. Thomas
Morrison, September term,
1823. Calvin Fletcher was the first prosecutor. Most of the aforesaid items of "first
things" are taken from
Blanchard's History, which he probably gleaned from the county records. Benjamin
Bull was the first resident
lawyer of Martinsville, John Eccolds, the second.
Dr. John Sims was the first regularly
educated physician who
practiced medicine in the county. He located in Martinsville about 1823. James Cunning
taught the first school in
Martinsville in the summer of 1822. Abraham Stipp, now living at Centerton, was one of
his scholars, and distinctly
remembers one incident that happened during the term. There were some boys and girls
from fifteen to eighteen
years of age, who began making love to each other by writing love notes back and
forth. Mr. Cunning peremptorily
forbade any further advances by the young men; but in a day or two, being willing
victims to that dreadful
disease, "puppy love," they were writing again to the girls. Then the teacher got on the
warpath and told them plainly
they should leave school or take a "thrashing." They concluded to let him "thrash" as
they could not afford to lose
the opportunity to learn how to "read, write, and cipher," which most of them
could not do when school
began. After everything had been "thrashed out" but the love, quiet reigned and the work
of education went on. The
house in which this school was taught stood northeast of the square. It had been an
old round log stable, but was
thoroughly cleaned and improved for its new use.
There is reason to believe that
schools and churches began work
earlier in Brown and Monroe townships than in the south part of the county. The Friends,
who largely composed the
early settlements, as well as the Methodists, gave more attention to school and church
work than their southern
neighbors.
So rapidly does time send all our
names into oblivion, excepting
a very few, so thoroughly are we forgotten in the whirl of the activities of life; so
completely are sublunary things
blotted out, that of all those who helped to grub the public square and lay it out and
plat the town, even those who
donated the land it stands on, not one is remembered today by the citizens of the
"Mineral Springs City." There
are a few descendants of Joshua Taylor, and perhaps of John Gray and Samuel Scott
among us, but not one of
Jacob Cutler or Joel Ferguson that the writer is aware of. The five men donated the 155
acres of land which was in
the original plat.
But where
are the descendants of Conner, Reynolds, Jenkins, Case, Mast, Rowland, and Chester
Holbrook. Some of the above
named men owned land in the sections of the county seat; the others nearby. But
their names disappeared more
than sixty five years ago from among the citizens of Martinsville.
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